Mayors support 'jumbo' bridge

After months of wrangling over size, the mayors of Portland and Vancouver have agreed that a new Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River should be the jumbo model featuring up to 12 lanes compared with the current six -- and that sprawl and other worries should be tightly managed.

Interstate 5 bridge decision

• The Portland City Council is expected to take comment and vote on an I-5 bridge compromise by the Portland and Vancouver mayors

• The hearing is at 3 p.m. today at City Council Chambers, City Hall, 1221 S.W. Fourth Ave.

As part of their pact, to be unveiled today, the mayors insist that a new bistate commission be established to manage the bridge, as well as the nearby Interstate 205 crossing, in instituting tolls to keep congestion and pollution in check for generations. That would remove some of the local division from a massive $4 billion project that will have huge economic and environmental consequences for the region.

The deal, whose details are yet to be worked out, represents a compromise for both cities. Portland Mayor Sam Adams has said that eight or 10 lanes could suffice for the crossing . It would also show concessions by Vancouver-area officials to live with tolls, van pools and other measures to ease congestion and encourage mass transit use, potentially on the only two highway bridges that bind the region.

But the agreement hinges on a bold new step: Creating a new bistate commission to actively manage the river crossings as a system. That would go against the decades-old pattern that endlessly expands highways, with pollution, congestion and growth overtaking them -- and little thought on how to pay for maintenance or expansion.

The new panel would ensure that the massive project lives up to the Portland-Vancouver region's goals, the mayors say in an Op/Ed article published today in The Oregonian and The Columbian newspapers. In coming months, regional officials would set performance standards and the bistate panel would implement them .

The concept gets its first public airing at 3 p.m. today, when the Portland City Council expects to hold a public hearing and vote on it.

The proposed panel could recommend higher or lower toll charges, light-rail fares and bridge lanes over the years, just as a homeowner adjusts a thermostat to respond to changing environmental conditions.

"The Columbia River Crossing will function differently in 2030 than it does on opening day," they wrote. "Technology will change, as will community needs. We share the belief that a performance-goal-based 'thermostat' is the best tool we have to ensure the new bridge meets the needs of current and future citizens."

But what should the goals be? That hasn't been decided.

A 10-member Project Sponsors Council overseeing Columbia River Crossing planning would set the goals this year, Adams says.

Metro Council President David Bragdon said Tuesday that he supports the proposal as a chance for the region to retain some control of a federal and state asset.

"It brings some local values to bear on that decision, and it institutionalizes that cooperation across the river at the local level, and I think that's a great idea," Bragdon said.

Adams has been working on the concept with other regional leaders on the Sponsors Council for a few weeks. City commissioners were briefed on the concept Tuesday.

Adams has raised the notion of a bistate authority in public at several Sponsors Council meetings, but it was always left as a notion: Let's try to make the bridge work the way we want it to work.

Today, it comes to the table as a potentially game-changing tactic for a region stuck on how many lanes to design. Trade unions push for a 12-lane bridge, saying it would bring them more work. Environmental groups push for fewer lanes and tolls to keep pollution and sprawl in check.

Since late last year, engineers and architects have been waiting for the region to order how big a bridge they should design. The Sponsors Council intended to vote on it in December, and now hopes to make a decision March 6.

Several members of the Sponsors Council have signed off on the Adams-Pollard proposal, including Bragdon, Clark County Commissioner Steve Stuart and Vancouver City Council member Tim Leavitt, who is challenging Pollard in an election this year.

What if highway planners take the OK for a 12-lane bridge, but the concept of a bistate pact fails? Adams says Portland could withdraw its support for the project, which would leave it politically dead in the water. Congressmen don't push for hundreds of millions of dollars without firm regional support.

Big decisions about the Columbia River Crossing and all major road and rail projects are now made one at a time, but Adams and Pollard are hoping that their concept can win enough support from regional players that they will go along designing a bridge that could hold 12 lanes.

The mayors say the new bistate panel puts the region on a course to manage growth and make hard choices that have so far mired Portland and Vancouver officials:

• Should the bridge be managed to ensure rush-hour motorists have the quickest, cheapest trip possible?

• Or, should it be managed to ensure trucks carrying West Coast commerce can speed through unimpeded at any hour?

• Or, should it have goals of the lowest possible emissions of air pollution and global warming inducing gasses?

The goals have not been settled, but Adams and Pollard and others on the Sponsors Council say both sides of the river agree on more goals than not.

Both mayors speak passionately about addressing climate change and encouraging mass transit. Both say that ensuring the free flow of commerce is a chief goal of the Columbia Crossing.

Whether the region has the will to clear the way of cars to make room for freight, remains to be seen.

What's not in doubt is that Adams has gone about setting high aspirations for the massive project, just a month after a sex scandal threatened to dislodge him from office. Bragdon in recent weeks expressed fear that a weakened Adams might not be able to stop his City Council colleagues and highway planners from approving a 12-lane plan for the bridge.

"That has not affected the working relationships among the Project Sponsors Council," Bragdon said.